This invention relates to automated records management. Companies often have to comply with internal or external requirements to implement some kind of records management system. The records management system typically includes a file plan that hierarchically organizes all of the company's records and that links with the company's record retention schedule. To designate a document to become a record, the document has to be declared as a record and classified in accordance with the file plan.
After the document becomes a record, the document may go through a life cycle that consists of one or more phases. Each phase specifies a duration and denotes a records management activity that must be performed at the beginning or end of the phase. Retention rules associated with the record control how long the record will remain in the various phases. At the end of the record's life cycle, the record is disposed of.
As the skilled reader realizes, the file plan is the backbone of the records management system. Without the file plan, there would be no relational or taxonomic order into which the records could be sorted. Thus, it is very important to have a well-designed file plan that provides a clear taxonomy that makes it easy for users to correctly create records and classify documents. Typically, the file plan is created through a manual process, which is both time-consuming and error-prone, where a user among other things must construct a hierarchical structure into which the records can be sorted. Especially for large companies with large numbers of records and many departments and users, this may be a very daunting task. Thus, it would be desirable to have a simplified and improved process for generating file plans for records management systems.